VIDEO: Dog returned to owner after firefighters forced to break car window

A young woman who helped rescue a dog left in a van in hot weather at Cultus Lake on Thursday is upset the owner had the animal returned to him.

Firefighters and RCMP were called to the scene of the parking lot behind the Cultus Lake Waterpark just after 3 p.m. on July 5 and broke the window of a mini-van to rescue the large chihuahua mix.

The temperature at the time was listed as about 29 C, but a reading on a vehicle in the area said 33 C.

The woman who works in the area, but who asked not to be named, said she saw the dog in the mini-van at around 2 p.m. She thought maybe someone had just gone briefly and would be back so she set a timer for 10 minutes, but still no one returned. The she set another one for 20 minutes, but still nothing.

So she went to the water park staff who told her the driver of the van had been kicked out of the parking lot at 11:30 a.m. because he was coming out every hour from 9:30 a.m. on to check on the dog.

“They told him ‘you cannot leave your dog in the car, there is a doggie day care down the road. That’s the only way you are allowed back in the park,’” she said.

Instead of taking the dog to the daycare, the driver of the vehicle, who said he lives in Surrey, drove around the back of the water park to the public parking lot.